The Trial of Cock Robin: Grice in cross-examination

Further to the analysis of 'logical connectives' in courtroom interaction:

Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin.
Who saw him die?
I, said the Fly,
with my little eye,
I saw him die.
Who caught his blood?
I, said the Fish,
with my little dish,
I caught his blood.
Who'll make the shroud?
I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle,
I'll make the shroud.
Who'll dig his grave?
I, said the Owl,
with my pick and shovel,
I'll dig his grave.
Who'll be the parson?
I, said the Rook,
with my little book,
I'll be the parson.
Who'll be the clerk?
I, said the Lark,
if it's not in the dark,
I'll be the clerk.
Who'll carry the link?
I, said the Linnet,
I'll fetch it in a minute,
I'll carry the link.
Who'll be chief mourner?
I, said the Dove,
I mourn for my love,
I'll be chief mourner.
Who'll carry the coffin?
I, said the Kite,
if it's not through the night,
I'll carry the coffin.
Who'll bear the pall?
We, said the Wren,
both the cock and the hen,
We'll bear the pall.
Who'll sing a psalm?
I, said the Thrush,
as she sat on a bush,
I'll sing a psalm.
Who'll toll the bell?
I said the bull,
because I can pull,
I'll toll the bell.
All the birds of the air
fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
when they heard the bell toll
for poor Cock Robin.

---- above from wiki.

Grice writes:

"We ask, 'Who killed Cock Robin?' not 'Who didn't kill Cock Robin?' and similarly fro 'when', 'where', and 'what', though the matter is less clear for 'why'".
(WoW: 69)

---

"If, for example, it is asked 'Who killed Cock Robin?'. To reply
'the sparrow or the hawk or the fox killed Cock Robin' might be

TO OFFER an INTERIM solution

to the problem of identifying the killer." (WoW: 72).


----

"The smaller the number of disjuncts which such a
statement involves, the close we may get, in
favourable circumstances, to the provision of

a final solution to this problem."

---

"Such a final solution might be achieved when
we reach a form of statement in which

NO DISJUNCTIVE particle

appears -- when, that is, we reach"

--- the verdict:

"such a statement as 'The sparrow killed Cock Robin'" (WoW: 72).

----

"For this final stage to be reached, certain
conditions have to be fulfilled."

"First, some kind of guarantee is needed that,
whatever the final solution turns out to be, it
coincides with one member or another of the INITIAL
SET of disjuncts."

"Second, as the inquiry [CROSS-EXAMINATION. JLS] proceeds,
good grounds have to be found for eliminating disjuncts one
by one."

"Third, the last surviving disjunct is, as consistency
requires, uneliminated."

----- Somebody MUST have killed Cock Robin.

"Fourth, it should be obvious that disjunctive
statements could NOT be put to work in the kind
of way unless initially they were accepted on
NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL GROUNDS."

"To suppose them to HAVE been initially
accepted on truh-functional grounds -- that is, on the strenght of the correctness
of ONE particular disjunct, such as that which
IDENTIFIES the killer of Cock Robin as
the sparrow -- commits the gross absurdity
of supposing that the problem which the
initial disjunctive statement is invoked
in order to solve has already been solved
before the inquiry begins, and so is, after
all, no problem" (WoW:73)

---- In that scenario, courtroom cross-examination seems more logical than your common-or-garden conversation!

I.e. if the connectives are loaded with 'implicature', that's why we expect "She flew to England and had an abortion" to report orderliness. Or "He must have been injured or killed", or "if he answered, he had heard the question" -- to trigger the typical implicatures. None of that should be taken for granted in courtroom interaction.

Therefore, the point is to analogise, as it were, monologue (where, Grice writes, no implicature is present) AND courtroom cross-examination, where it shouldn't be, either. To be guided by implicature -- as in the case of the trial of the sparrow for the killing of Cock Robin -- is to frame the sparrow. In many cases, what is merely IMPLICATED by the use of a device (e.g. 'or' as in the case Grice presents) is best made explicit -- by a member of the jury of course.

Or something.

"I may be able", Grice writes, p. 74, talking as jury, "to determine by reason
alone just WHO killed Cock Robin; or alternatively, to reach a final
solution, I may have to invoke the ASSISTANCE of
observation and empirical evidence"

--- usually numbered, in tidy trials.

for the jury is "debating which member of a set of
individuals possesses the attribute of
being the killer of Cock Robin."

--- the sparrow, the hawk, or the fox.

---

In this case, 'habeas corpus' applies: the corpse being of course Cock Robin's.